5.  The first and second applicants were born in 1952 and 1948 respectively and live in Helsinki. The applicant company has its seat in Helsinki. The first applicant is a freelance journalist and the second applicant editor-in-chief of Seura magazine.
6.  On 20 December 1996 an article written by the first applicant was published in issue no. 51-52/1996 of Seura magazine. It stated in the headline that the Child Ombudsman in the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare (Mannerheimin lastensuojeluliitto, Mannerheims barnskyddsförbund), which is a non-governmental organisation, had been removed from office (in Finnish: “Lapsiasiamies hyllylle”) and in the text, inter alia, that the Ombudsman (henceforth “X.”) had been transferred to do research work and that she would not be replaced as Ombudsman (“... [hänet] siirretään tutkijaksi, eikä hänelle palkata sijaista lapsiasiamieheksi”). The article also stated that the Ombudsman had no training or experience in research work. The general tone of the article was critical. During the subsequent court proceedings the first applicant argued that when writing it he had relied on information given in a tabloid article published on 11 December 1996. He considered that no reason had emerged to believe that the information contained therein was not true.
7.  Issue no. 4/1997 of Seura magazine included a rectification by the press officer of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, stating that the information concerning removal from office was groundless. The rest of the rectification stated the following:
"[i]n 1995 X. was awarded a grant for three months which she used last autumn. X. will also have three months' research leave in 1997. X will take this leave at a later stage to be agreed upon.
"The research leave does not affect X.'s position as the Child Ombudsman in the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare in any way."
8.  On 29 October 1997 X. requested the police to investigate the matter. On 28 April and 30 April 1998 the first and the second applicants were questioned by the police. In her concluding statement of 16 December 1998 X. pursued a compensation claim against all the applicants. The pre-trial investigation was completed on 1 November 1998.
9.  On 3 April 2000 the public prosecutor preferred charges against the first and second applicants. The next day the case became pending before the Espoo District Court (käräjäoikeus, tingsrätten). X. concurred with the charges brought by the public prosecutor and supplemented the description of the defamation charges. On an unknown date X.'s compensation claim, together with her claim for costs and expenses, was joined to the criminal charges.
10.  On 5 May 2000 the District Court invited the parties' written submissions. According to the applicants they were served with the summonses only in November 2000.
11.  On 26 May 2003 the District Court held a preparatory hearing. A second preliminary hearing was held on 19 September 2003.
12.  The District Court heard the case over three days during the period from 1 to 9 December 2003. It heard thirteen witnesses and received a significant amount of documentary evidence.
13.  On 19 January 2004 the District Court gave judgment, convicting the first and second applicants of defamation (painotuotteen kautta tehty julkinen herjaus, offentlig smädelse skett genom tryckalster), sentencing them to forty day-fines, amounting to EUR 240 and EUR 2,360 respectively, and ordering them, together with Yhtyneet Kuvalehdet Oy, the publishing company, to pay non-pecuniary damages to X. in the amount of 5,000 euros (EUR) plus interest and to reimburse two thirds of her costs and expenses, that is, EUR 17,172 plus interest. The reimbursement of costs was only partial, on the ground that X. was considered to have submitted some pieces of evidence which had not been relevant to the case.
14.  The District Court's conclusions from the evidence presented were the following:
“The defendants being guilty of defamation 1. Allegation concerning the transfer of [X.] to research work
Excluding the headline and the caption, the article referred to in the indictment was drafted by [the first applicant]. It was written in the article, in a manner described in the indictment, that [X.] is transferred to do research work. This passage of the article was the basis of the headline, "Child Ombudsman removed from office".
It appears from the testimonies of witnesses [I.], [K.-T.], [W.] and [K.] that [X.] had not been transferred to a researcher post but that she had instead undertaken research work and had therefore been on 80% research leave from 1 October to 31 December 1996.
On 11 December 1996 Ilta-Sanomat published an article reporting on [X.'s] transfer to research work. The defendants have invoked this article, arguing that it and the article referred to in the indictment had no essential difference and that [X.] has not claimed rectification or filed a criminal complaint on account of the article in Ilta-Sanomat.
The District Court holds that there is a relevant difference between reporting that a person will transfer or has transferred to other tasks and reporting that the person has been transferred to other tasks. The latter wording, which [the first applicant] has used in his article, is negative vis-à-vis a person, such is also the headline of the article, which is based on this wording and alleges [X.'s] removal from office. Such a wording suggests that the person in question has committed some misconduct in his or her work or performed it inappropriately and is therefore removed from office and transferred to other tasks due to his or her own fault. In [X.'s] case such a transfer did not take place, and the information given in the article was incorrect. This incorrect information disclosed in the article included a hint that [X.], when performing her work, had been guilty of an act which warranted her transfer to other tasks. This incorrect information was conducive to causing damage to her performance in office and to her success. Furthermore, [X.'s] tasks were not changed at the turn of the years 1996-1997.
... 3. Experience of and training for research work
It is stated in the indictment that the article has aimed to strengthen the impression given by it that the transfer of [X.] to research work was due to her poor performance in office, by writing that [X.] has no experience of or training for research work.
It has appeared in the matter, also from [X.'s] testimony, that the information about the lack of research experience and training is not false as such. In a manner described in the indictment, this reference is connected to the allegation made in the article that [X.] had been transferred to research work. However, as the allegation of transfer has been found incorrect, the information about [X.'s] lack of research experience and training, truthful as such, has, in the manner described in the indictment, strengthened the erroneous impression given by the article that [X.] had been transferred to other tasks due to her own fault, and even to tasks for which she was unqualified in terms of training and experience. In the context in question, the information violated [X.'s] honour and strengthened the significance of the incorrect information disclosed in the article. 4. Summary
The article provided incorrect information about the removal of [X.] from office and her transfer to research work and emphasised the significance of the alleged transfer by stating that [X.] lacks the necessary training and experience. To this extent the article gave the reader the picture that the alleged transfer was due to [X.'s] poor performance of the tasks of Child Ombudsman. The article contained incorrect information which was conducive to causing damage to [X.'s] performance in office and her success. [The first applicant], responsible for the text of the article, and [the second applicant], responsible for the text and the headline of the article, have not verified the information given in the article although it was easily verifiable from the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, for example from Secretary General [I.]. The information about the transfer of [X.] to research work has been the erroneous conclusion of [the first applicant], and the headline of the article, an aggravated expression highlighting the erroneous allegation, which has been created by the editorial staff on the basis of the said conclusion.”
15.  On 23 February 2004 the District Court, on the request of the first and second applicants and X., extended the time-limit for appealing against the judgment until 18 March 2004. The time-limit for filing a counter-appeal was fixed at 1 April 2004.
16.  The applicants appealed to the Helsinki Court of Appeal (hovioikeus, hovrätten). In a counter-appeal dated 1 April 2004 X. argued, inter alia, that the appellate court should increase the compensation payable to her.
17.  The case was heard over two days, on 13 and 15 June 2006, in the Court of Appeal. On 31 August 2006 it upheld the lower court's judgment.
18.  The Court of Appeal's assessment of the evidence was the following:
“The Court of Appeal holds that no reason exists to assess the evidence presented in the case differently from the assessment made by the District Court regarding the incorrectness of the article published in Seura magazine. Thus, the article in issue was not truthful to the extent that it alleged that [X.] had been transferred to do research work. Likewise, the headline of the article and the caption under [X.'s] photograph, which were based on the said allegation, were untruthful. The Court of Appeal holds, in line with the District Court, that the article published in Ilta-Sanomat on 11 December 1996, which, according to [the first applicant] was the basis for his article, has not corresponded to the article published in Seura in respect of the parts in issue. According to the headline of the article in Ilta-Sanomat, [X.] has undertaken research work, and according to the text of the article itself, [X.] was transferring to research work. The article also stated that [X.] had agreed on the change to research work more than one year earlier, that [X.] had already started a special study in addition to her daily work as the Child Ombudsman and that the main emphasis of her work would be shifted onto research and that according to [the Secretary General], no replacement was needed for the Child Ombudsman. Although witness [V.] had reported that when writing the article Ilta-Sanomat had thought that there were conflicts behind [X.'s] changeover to research work, the article in the newspaper cannot lead to the conclusion that [X.] was transferred to research work for such reasons. Therefore, [the first applicant] could not have based his allegation about the transfer of [X.] on the article in Ilta-Sanomat. The fact that witness [V.] remembers having read about [X.'s] changeover in some little article in another news publication or in some press release already, is without significance in assessing the liability of [the first applicant]. Further, it has not been substantiated solely on the basis of the testimony of witness [V.] that such a piece of news or press release even existed. Neither has it been clarified that the leaders of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare were otherwise revising the job description of [X.] as the Child Ombudsman in 1996. Therefore, it is to be considered that [the first applicant], by failing to verify the truthfulness of the allegation of transfer of [X.] to research work, intentionally, against his better knowledge, made a false allegation, which may have subjected [X.] to contempt or caused damage to her livelihood or success.
[The first applicant] has submitted that he did not write the headline and the caption of the article in Seura. [The second applicant], too, has submitted that the headline and the caption were written by editorial staff, probably by a subeditor. However, [the second applicant] has admitted that he, as the editor-in-chief, was also responsible for the headline of the article, which the groundless allegation by [the first applicant] made possible.
[The second applicant] has submitted in the Court of Appeal that he did not read the article by [the first applicant] in advance or discuss it with him. However, when questioned in the pre-trial investigation, he remembered the incidents better. [The second] applicant has reported in the police investigation on 30 April 1998 that he discussed the article and its truthfulness with [the first applicant] before it was published. No reason exists to doubt the reliability of the testimony given by [the second applicant] in the pre-trial investigation. It has thus been substantiated that [the second applicant] approved the publishing of the article. Therefore, the second applicant has intentionally published the false allegation described above.
On the aforementioned grounds and otherwise on the grounds stated by the District Court, it has been substantiated that [the first and second applicants], are guilty of public defamation, against their better knowledge, committed through printed material under Chapter 27, section 1, of the Penal Code in force at the time of the offence, as imputed to them by the District Court. The act also fulfils the essential elements of defamation under the current Chapter 24, section 9, subsection 1, of the Penal Code. Since the offence was committed through mass media, and considering the circumstances mentioned by the District Court in the reasoning for its judgment and the fact that the article gives the picture that [X.] had committed misconduct in work or performed it inappropriately and was therefore transferred to other tasks against her own will, the defamation is also to be considered aggravated when assessed as a whole. Since applying the new law will thus not lead to a more lenient result than the law in force at the time of the offence, the earlier Chapter 27, section 1, of the Penal Code is to be applied.
...”
19.  On 30 October 2006 X. and the applicants applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court (korkein oikeus, högsta domstolen), referring, inter alia, to Articles 6 and 10 of the Convention. Leave was refused on 1 February 2007.
Other events
20.  Meanwhile, on 11 December 2003 the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare decided to wind up the functions of the Child Ombudsman with effect from 1 February 2004. In a final judgment of 27 October 2006 the Helsinki District Court held that X.'s duties had been unlawfully terminated.